. You've all seen the commercials with the catchy little jingle, I'm sure. Buy 2 rooms, get a 2nd one free.
Well, I'm not going to talk about that promo, but I will tell you I think their sales tactics are pretty sleazy.
I had them carpet my mother's condo. The sales guy took the measurements, and amid everything going on, I overlooked a second staircase that leads to a finished basement.
The new carpeting looks great, although I wasn't thrilled about a few things that happened. Like, without asking me if it was okay, the carpet guys were throwing large rolled up pieces of the old carpet out my mother's 2nd floor window onto the sidewalk below. Umm, someone lives in the unit below and you could knock someone to the ground that way. Not to mention there were assorted flower pots on the stairs.
They also didn't bother to vacuum the unit after removing the old carpeting. They just started right in installing the padding.
The next surprise was when the carpet guy, whose English I couldn't understand, let it be known to me that he couldn't cut the carpet inside the condo becus there wasn't enough room. And that he couldn't cut outside becus it was raining. So they up and left.
They returned the next day and true to his word, he lay brand new carpeting on the filthy dirty parking lot asphalt and cut it there, then rolled it up and brought it inside the condo.
They did agree to give me a $100 credit for the inconvenience of having them come back the 2nd day. Luckily I had taken vacation time, but what if I hadn't??
The day after that is when i realized I should have carpeted the 2nd staircase going down to the lower level. Empire came back to measure and told me the price would be $381 plus a $60 "add-on" fee.
The current carpeting is disgusting and needs to go. One thing that had caused me to delay in this was the realtor's comment that i should probably check first with the management company to make sure the space wasn't considered public space, since the staircase is also used by the adjacent condo owner for access to their own finished basement.
The next day I was in touch with Empire and asked him to remind me what that add-on fee was. (I knew what it was.) He told me $65, but that I had to commit to doing the job that day.
In the meantime, management told me go ahead and carpet it but try asking the next door owner to split the cost. I left a note in his mailbox saying I'd pay for the whole thing but could he provide access/open his doors when the installers were there so they could install properly. Never heard back and told Empire the same.
About 5 days later, I decided to forge ahead without the neighbor's assistance and called Empire back.
He said it could no longer be considered an "add-on" and that the minimum cost was usually $750 but he could "probably" get it down to $500.
I never talked to him again.
Empire Today's sleazy sales tactics
June 27th, 2015 at 12:29 pm
June 27th, 2015 at 08:19 pm 1435432793
June 27th, 2015 at 10:19 pm 1435439981
June 28th, 2015 at 02:53 am 1435456382
June 28th, 2015 at 10:59 pm 1435528779
June 30th, 2015 at 12:42 am 1435621375
Thx Dido, you are right.....!